Communications devices such as cellular telephones, mobile communication devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptops, and the like are becoming more prevalent as technology advances and makes these devices more powerful and more affordable. Location-based services have been developed for these devices based on the premise that service providers are able to identify the location of mobile devices attached to their networks and provide additional services based on that location. More specifically, it is a requirement of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that emergency 911 (E911) calls made from mobile devices must provide caller location accuracy within 50 meters for 67% of the calls and within 100 meters for 100% of the calls for handset based location determination. It is further required that E911 calls made from mobile devices must provide caller location accuracy within 100 meters for 67% of the calls and within 300 meters for 100% of the calls for network based location determination. Most devices in use by typical users do not have direct global positioning system (GPS) capabilities. Some may use assisted GPS, where the network assists a properly configured device with locating and communicating with GPS satellites in order to obtain location information. Other devices may have no location capabilities on-board, and the networks supporting such devices may determine the device location using various methods known to those skilled in the art, including trilateration.
Many of the technologies used to provide or determine location information are less effective or not available indoors. This may be due to the inability to communicate with GPS satellites. In other situations, a newer technology, such as 3rd generation (3G) wireless technology, may not be fully capable of providing location technology indoors and an older technology, such as 2nd generation (2G) wireless technology may be used to determine or acquire the location of a device. However, this may involve installing and/or maintaining redundant network equipment, for example installing and maintaining both 2G and 3G equipment, resulting in great cost to a carrier or network provider in order to comply with FCC requirements. Also, the coverage areas of an older technology network may not exactly overlap the coverage area of the newer technology network, leaving gaps in emergency coverage which may result in a failure to meet FCC requirements, and, more importantly, delayed or failed response to emergency calls.